Chicken leftovers....Chicken Fricassée?

This is a great dish to use up all those roast chicken dinner leftovers, including the roasted vegetables.  I came across this recipe in the M&S bible and it has been a firm favourite ever since, not only does it sound very sophisticated but it also can easily be doubled or tripled to feed the 5 thousand.  As always I have added my own twist to the recipe and I encourage you to do the same.

 Ingredients (feeds 2-4)

Leftover cooked chicken pieces

1 onion diced

4-5 floz chicken stock

2 carrots, diced

2 celery sticks, diced

8oz frozen peas

1 pepper, deseeded and diced.

4oz mushrooms sliced

4floz natural yoghurt (crème fraiche or soured cream is absolutely fine)

3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Salt and Pepper

Rice (50g per person)

Parmesan or other hard Italian cheese, grated (25g)

All the vegetables in the above list are optional; if you don’t like them you can remove/replace them.  I also find that butternut squash, sweet potato, new potato and courgette all of which have been previously roasted, work really well in this dish also.  The Marks and Spencer recipe doesn’t include rice, but I always do, it goes really well and you can either make a big risotto type dish, or you can add the rice on the side.

 Method

§  Put the rice in boiling water and cook according to the instructions on the packet, drain in a sieve.

§  Heat some oil in a pan and add the onion, carrots, celery and pepper and gently fry off for 5 minutes.

§  Add the cooked chicken pieces and stock and bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer.  Simmer away for 5-8 minutes more until the liquid has reduced by half.

§  Now add the soft vegetables – the left over roast vegetables, the mushrooms and the peas and then add your yoghurt.  I find that it really doesn’t matter whether you use yoghurt, or crème fraiche or soured cream, whatever you have in the fridge.  I do think cream is a little rich, but add a dash or two of lemon juice to give it some bite and this would be ok too.

§  Add the cooked rice to the dish and heat until everything has warmed through.

§  Finish with stirring in the Parmesan and sprinkle over the fresh parsley.

 Absolutely scrummy!

Midweek Roast

When you think of a roast dinner, you associate it with Sunday, as is tradition in England, but it doesn’t have to be the only day of the week to enjoy this feast.  Chris Evans, Radio 2 breakfast presenter often talks about his Sunday Dinner on a Monday and I completely agree, what is stopping us having a midweek roast?  That is exactly what we do and it is great if you have company, no more work necessary (except maybe a few more veg).

The other night, we had the in-laws round and always keen to show their son bagged a good one, I cooked a lemon roast chicken with lemon and parsley stuffing, followed by an apple and blackberry crumble.  Absolutely delicious and totally satisfying!  As a commuter I had to make sure I came home that bit earlier from work because if there is one part of cooking I am absolutely rubbish at…it’s my timings, but I will talk you through my recipes:

 Ingredients to feed 4-5

(For the main course)                                    (For the Pudding)

1 Chicken (mine was 1.750 kg)                      1lb 7oz dessert apples (braeburn or cox

2 lemons                                                          orange pippin)

5 slices of bread (crusts if possible)                Punnet of blackberries

1 onion diced                                                  Granulated sugar 1oz (30g)

30g of fresh parsley chopped                          Squeeze of lemon juice

1 egg                                                               Plain flour 4oz (100g)

White wine (50ml)                                          Butter or marg 3oz (90g)

Salt & Pepper                                                  Demerara/brown sugar 2 oz (60g)

                                                                        Porridge Oats 2oz (60g)

                                                                        Drizzle of golden syrup

The Main

·         First of all, if you have your chicken in the fridge, take it out half an hour before you put it in the oven to let it warm up to room temperature.

·         Prepare your stuffing.  Gently fry off your onion in a little oil until soft and while it is cooking, blitz the bread into bread crumbs with a hand blender or food processor. 

·         Chop the parsley finely and combine with the bread crumbs and onion and squeeze in the juice of 1 lemon. 

·         Add a beaten egg and mix the whole lot until it has combined nicely, you still want it a little loose, not clumped together in a gooey mess.

·         Next take your chicken and place in a roasting tin, from the neck end (with the big flap of skin) using a spoon, wiggle it underneath the skin to ease it away from the body of the chicken to create a pocket in which to place about half of your stuffing.

·         Once the stuffing is underneath the skin, place the other half in a small oven proof dish (you can cook this off in the oven for 20 minutes and serve it as an extra side).

·         Now take your other lemon and slice it up placing the lemons on top of the chicken, just resting on the bird. You can secure them with cocktail sticks if you like, but this is not necessary.

·         Finally pour 150ml of boiling water and the wine into the bottom of the roasting dish and cover with tin foil.  Place in the oven on 180 degrees for 1 hour, after which you remove the foil and cook for a further 20-30 minutes, until the skin is golden and crispy and the juices run clear when pricked with a fork.  Take the chicken from the oven, cover with the foil and leave to rest for half an hour to let the meat relax, making it more tender.

Sides

I did roasted veg with my chicken.  I always find this an easy side when entertaining because very little effort is involved.  Always keep your veg big and chunky because they will shrink when roasted. If using potatoes or other hard veg, I would par boil them for half the time they usually take to cook, then toss your veg in a drizzle of sunflower oil, salt and pepper.  Cook in the oven for 30-40 minutes on 180 degrees.

The gravy

When doing a roast of any meat, always using the roasting tin to make your gravy in because that is where the real flavour is.  For this recipe, I moved the chicken to a warm plate, to allow it to rest. Meanwhile I moved the roasting tin to the hob and put on a low heat.  Once all the scraps and meat juices begin to sizzle, you want to de-glaze the pan with wine (or water if you don’t want to use alcohol)….this simply means you add a few glugs of wine (white for chicken/white meats and red for beef/dark meats) to the pan and stir with a whisk to get all those meaty fragments and juices mixed in.  Make some instant chicken gravy up, by following the instructions on the packet (I used good old Bisto) and add this to the pan.  When it has all heated through, strain into a serving jug.  Using the meat juices enhances this gravy ten-fold; it will have bags more flavour and elevates the whole dish.

The Pudding
You want to prepare this in the first hour of your chicken being in the oven.  The essential ingredients above come from Mary Berry’s cook book on puddings, but I have added my own little twist.

·         Peel and core all your apples then thinly slice them. 

·         Place in a bowl with the granulated sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice and toss so that everything is coated.  The lemon juice prevents the apple slices from going brown when they become exposde to the air.

·         Find a suitable oven proof dish, about 8 inches wide and 2-3 inches deep. And layer up the apples, dotting the blackberries in and amongst and then get on with the crumble topping.

·         Put the plain flour, brown sugar and butter in the same bowl and rub together between your fingertips until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.

·         Now add the oats and stir through.

·         Finally add a drizzle of golden syrup, I add this to my crumbles to get a little bit of a chewy top, it is completely optional, it is just the way I like my crumbles.

·         Cover the fruit with an even layer of crumble mix then bake in the oven for about 40 minutes on 180 degrees or until the top has gone brown and the fruit is bubbling around the edges of the dish.

Tips for a good roast

1.      Always plan and read the recipe in full, before you begin, so that you can allocate enough time to prepare your meal.

2.      Wash/clear up as you go along, especially if you have a small area because a roast takes up a lot of room.

3.      The meat in the tin is heavy, bear this in mind when lifting it in and out of the oven; unlike me who overcompensated when lifting and burnt my arm on the tray above, I now have an impressive memento on my forearm.

So there you have it, a roast fit for a Sunday or any other time of the week, next time I will give you an idea of what to do with your left overs.

Fish Supper

When I hear the phrase "fish supper" I conjure up an image of a rather posh couple on balcony with antiqued railings overlooking a shimmering bay below with the sun quivering just above the horizon.  There will be a couple of glasses of Chardonnay and some candles flickering and both will appear relaxed and content.  This would be the ideal setting for my fish supper, not sadly a soggy cold night in England.  However I do believe fish suppers have their place here.

We all hear of the importance of getting our fill of the slippery little creatures, with all their omega and oils and vitamins but I often find I have to work myself up to a fish dinner.  I consciously make the effort to have fish at home, it is rarely a choice I would make in a restaurant, being primarily a meat eater, but there is one ingredient that trumps them all for me when it comes to a menu and that is prawns.

I find king prawns make an excellent fish supper, especially if you are eating late and you want to avoid something heavy that will lie on your stomach later and keep you awake.  They are also great for a celebration supper or as a sharing platter with friends and my dish is unbelievably simple.

Ingredients

King prawns (raw)

Onion diced

Lemon juice

White wine

Double Cream

Flat Leaf Parsley (finely chopped)

Salt and Pepper

To serve

Hot crusty bread

·         Numbers of prawns really depend on number of people, I would say for a main meal you want about 6 prawns each and for a starter 3-4.

·         Dice half an onion (for 2 people, increase as necessary) into small chunks and fry off in a little butter in a frying pan.

·         Once the pan is hot with the onions, add a good glug of wine, I use the small bottles and I would use just under half for 2 people so I would say about 75ml and let that bubble away with a squeeze of lemon juice.

·         Now add your prawns and season (raw is best, but if you can only find the cooked ones, you will want to add your cream first).  Prawns take very little time to cook, and it is easy to over-do them.  When they are fully pink they are ready.

·         Once your prawns have been in the mix for about 2 minutes, check to see how pink they are, if they are pink on that side, flip them over and add a glug of cream (about 50ml).

·         Let this bubble for the rest of the time it takes the prawns to cook (another 2-3 mins).

·         Serve in the pan with the flat leaf parsley sprinkled over the top and hot crusty bread on the side to mop up all that delicious sauce.

Alternatives

·         You can always drop the cream if you are not a big fan and go for a lemon, wine and butter sauce.  Same premise as before only add more lemon juice and a knob of butter (1 ounce).  I call these Prawns a la Portugal because I often have prawns in garlic butter (minus the garlic) when I am out there.

·         Why not try prawns in a spicy tomato sauce.  Start with your onion base and add either fresh or canned chopped tomatoes. Season and add herbs of your choice; I would go for basil, and then add some chilli -powder or flakes are fine.  Always taste.  I was taught that you can always add more, you can never take away and with prawns being an expensive ingredient you really don't want to ruin them.

Tips

If you feel your sauce isn't going to plan, it hasn't reduced enough or it just doesn't taste right... you can always remove your prawns and set them aside, then work on a new batch of sauce and throw in your prawns at the very last minute.

This dish makes a very tasty and satisfying meal in under 5 minutes, and the best bit....prawns are very low in calories (we will ignore the cream). Enjoy!

Oh and by the way...I am still getting used to photographing my food before I eat and kind of couldn't help jumping in before taking this photo, there were a lot more prawns!